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The Milavsky RV Letters
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Camping Europe in an RV |
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Letter 18
Note: Today is October 13, more than a week later than the period covered in this email. We are now in Amsterdam and will leave Europe for our Connecticut home tomorrow. This is the last email we will send from Europe. We will send another email from home that covers the last week or so of our trip and perhaps one more after that will provide some sort of summary and some afterthoughts—things we think we might want to say after we have had a chance to reflect some on what we have experienced. Greetings from the countries known as Benelux. From Paris, we headed for Gent in Belgium. We always stop at least once in Gent because that is where we found a place that can fill our LPG tank. It was quite a trip. Our problem began with the fact that we didn’t turn right shortly after we left the Paris campground. We weren’t sure if that was the correct turn – and there was no time to think the decision through. In seconds, we were going under an overpass on our way to St. Denis. That was a reasonable way to go. St. Denis was north of Paris and we needed to go northeast. But the road we were on did not have any indication of where we could pick up the correct road. It took us almost an hour to find a sign to Lille – and most of that time was just trying to find the way to the correct road. Find it we did – and drove through the French countryside and innumerable villages and a couple of cities as well. Once we got to Lille, we followed the signs for a Belgian city named Kotrijk where we knew that we would see signs for the road to Gent. We got there in about four hours instead of our usual three – but it was still early. After eating lunch, we took the bus into Centre Ville. Gent was a very rich, important town in the Middle Ages. Since then, it expanded into a modern city. Its great beauty is the central area of the medieval city where there are four beautiful cathedrals in a row. It is a matter of amazement to us that what must have been a small population could have supported the building of so many impressive cathedrals. There are also a number of other large buildings, many beautiful 500 years old warehouses along the canals and the impressive Gravenstein Castle from the same era. We’ve been in Gent before, and seen all this, but we really like the city so we were pleased to be back. Our first stops were in two of the beautiful churches. Then we went to view Gent’s greatest treasure, an altarpiece called "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb". This is one of the greatest art treasures in the world and was painted for a chapel in the Church of St. Baaf. This huge series of twelve paintings was the work of two brothers. Jan Van Eyck is the more famous of the two. We’ve seen it before, but we decided to look in at it again. The audioguide informed us, among other things, that this set of paintings is as full of the most important Christian symbols as any painting can be. Practically every brush stroke has some significance in Christian theology. But the paintings are so artfully organized and executed that one can know nothing about the symbolism and still appreciate them simply as great paintings. After seeing the altarpiece, we walked around the side chapels of the huge cathedral. One of them had a full size color photo of the Van Eyck alterpiece which we had just seen in its special room. The volunteer docent asked Ron where we came from. When he heard that we were Americans, he volunteered the information that "we" – that is, the people of Belgium and particularly of Gent – are deeply in debt to the wonderful Americans. That’s when he told us the story of the altarpiece during World War II. Neither of us can remember all the details that this 92-year old man told us, because the story was a complicated one. The Nazis conquered Belgium at the beginning of World War II, and one of the things they did early on was to take the altarpiece out of the cathedral. It was taken to Germany where it then passed through the hands of several high ranking Nazis, including Goering, who gave it as a "gift" to Hitler. When the Allies were advancing across Europe, to "protect" his new possession, Hitler first sent it to Bavaria and then to a salt mine in the same region where it would not be damaged by bombs. After the Americans occupied Germany, the U.S. Army found the altarpiece, and, as the docent said, "Instead of taking it back to New York, they returned it to St. Baaf’s. We are very, very grateful to the Americans". He ended this recitation with saying how much Belgium owed to the Americans, and he said it in such a way that we were both moved emotionally with a feeling of pride that our country had acted in this way. The next morning we drove to what we believe is the one place in Europe that can refill our propane tank, the bottling plant of Ganda Gas in Gent. We’ve been there before, and they know us. While they were getting ready to refill our tank, Adelle showed our book to the man who has always helped us. He was very pleased and made copies of the places where the company’s name is mentioned. Our next errand was to check with a place that changes oil to see if they could change the oil in the RV. We got instructions from the campground and we got there with no difficulty, but it was on the "wrong" side of a road that had no way to get across, so we had to make a left and drive on a side road until we could turn. As we drove, we noticed a large number of policemen stopping cars on the other side of the street. We knew that they would certainly stop us when we reached them, and they did. A nice young man poked his head in our window and said something incomprehensible – and Adelle explained we didn’t speak Flemish. He promptly changed to excellent English and asked for our papers. We gave him the registration and the "green card" which proves that we have liability insurance on the motorhome. Then he asked about our license plates – and we explained. No problem. Next question: how do we like Gent? We told him that we think the center is beautiful, and he beamed and waved us on. After all that, the Speedy Oil Change was unable to accommodate a motorhome – so we decided to wait until Amsterdam. The following morning, we made the less-than-an-hour journey to Brugge. In the Middle Ages, Brugge was also a seaport. The sea silted up and left the city high and dry. As a result, it has an exquisite center that hasn’t changed in five hundred years. This was the first city we had come to on our first European journey. We loved it then and we love it now. We went to the same campground where we had stayed in 2002, and spent our first afternoon at the supermarket that we remembered from our first visit. We remembered the market, but since we were there on day one of trip one, we didn’t know about the Carrefour supermarket chain. No wonder it was so good. Of course, we greatly enjoyed our shopping. When we were done, we went in and had a cup of coffee in the Lunch Garden Restaurant, a serve-yourself cafeteria that was part of the mall. This one had a very unusual feature, at least to an American—a serve-yourself draft beer station. You stick a glass under the spout, pull the lever, and, presto, you are an instant bartender. We had an opportunity to buy a bit more than our usual from the Carrefour. We were in Brugge to meet our friends Mike and Wilma from Scotland as we returned to the Netherlands and they arrived on the continent to visit friends in France. So a good lunch was in order. We are getting better about buying only what we really need. We only had to eat the leftovers for another three days after their visit. Mike and Wilma drove off the ferry and into the campground about 1pm and we enjoyed a lovely lunch. Then they went to register at their hotel for the night and we arranged to meet for dinner. We were going to walk around the central part of town before we ate, but the rain prevented that. Instead we sat and talked for a long time before we ordered dinner. After dinner, the rain let up and the four of us did have a chance to walk around. When we said good-bye, we returned to the campground. We heard that there would be a big market the next morning, so guess where we went? It was an interesting market. At one stall, they were selling the remnants of a store in Paris that went out of business. We replaced Adelle’s broken backpack pocketbook with a much nicer bag. That wasn’t all, of course. We spent the rest of the day walking all around Brugge, looking at the beautiful old buildings, the canals, and the horse drawn carriages that clip-clop at a trotting pace around the center city all day and evening. Brugge has many, many chocolate shops and also many, many lace shops. Besides the marvelous beer made here, the chocolate and lace are also truly noteworthy. And the Belgian chocolate candy we bought was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Some of you may not want to hear about the rather odd, even outlandish taste that Belgians obviously have in the shape of some of the chocolates sold here. There are prominent displays in the windows of many of the chocolate shops featuring candy breasts and penises. Perhaps it is tourists not the Belgians who buy these shapes. But not these two tourists. Obviously the Belgians are not prudish, nor do they care that children frequent these shops. By the way, do any of you know how to say, "Mommy, can I have one of those?" in Flemish? Two of the most beautiful buildings here are the town hall and the Palace of Justice next door. On the second floor of the Town Hall is a large room called the Gothic room. The drop-dead gorgeous room with 19th century murals on all four walls has a vaulted wooden ceiling decorated with gold. The city council meeting room in the Palace of Justice has one wall consisting of intricate wood sculptures of historic figures. Our plans were to visit at least some of the other Belgian cities by rail, since we knew that there is a special fare for one-day excursions anywhere in Belgium for people over 65. When we got back to the campground we looked at the map and decided that Gent was more centrally located in Belgium and if we wanted to take a train to see other cities, we’d be better off there rather than Brugge. So it was back to Gent in the morning. The bus from outside the campground took us past the city center and gave us a new view of the size of Gent. After checking the price of the train (3 euros per person, one day excursion fare) and the schedule to go to Antwerp (trains every 30 minutes or so), we took the bus back to the central area. Since we’d only had a short time downtown on our previous visit, we wanted to look around some more. The next morning we took the train to Antwerp. We had spent days in Antwerp the last trip, and we just wanted to walk around. We walked through the shopping area until we reached the Notre Dame Cathedral, which we have dubbed " the autre Notre". This church has, count them, seven naves (the long corridors from front to back), three on either side of the large center nave, making it on this count certainly one of the largest in Europe. It is one of our favorites. It also has at least two large paintings by Peter Paul Rubens who lived and worked in Antwerp. It was lunch time, but nothing really appealed to us. We put off the problem by stopping at a frituur (a shop specializing in fried potatoes) and other fried foods. As our 2002 letters explained, fried potatoes are not really French. They are the specialty of the Belgians – and Vlamse Frites are recognized as the originals. In Belgium and even in the Netherlands, people often have nothing but a large portion of delicious fries for lunch. Unfortunately the usual sauce accompaniment of this lunch is a huge gob of mayonnaise. We simply asked for a large frites, plain, and then we sat down to eat them. This put off the problem of a real lunch for hours. After lunch we walked down past the city hall square to the river Shelde, a large river on which there was no traffic at all. There is a promenade along this river and last time we were here a couple was sitting on the wall of the promenade hugging and kissing. Guess what, this time there was another couple hugging and kissing almost on the same spot. City Hall square is another gem. On one side is the huge ornate city hall bedecked with the flags of many nations, and on two other sides there are old and beautiful buildings topped with peaked, step facades decorated with large gold ornamental figures of animals and people. Very striking. Eventually, we started to get tired of walking, so we decided to take a tram back to the station, and we started to walk to find the tram. As we did, we walked into an area that we remembered vividly from our previous visit – so we stopped and had lunch in one of our old "haunts". After walking some more, we hopped a tram back to the station and took the train back to Gent. Next morning we left for the Netherlands. To do that, we had to drive past Antwerp, which is east of Gent. This turned out to be nearly impossible. There are a lot of bridges and tunnels on the main roads going past Antwerp, and we were following the signs for a city in the Netherlands near our destination, and were routed to the Kennedy tunnel (!). It took two and one half hours before we reached highway speeds again. We never did figure out what the problem was. The traffic was extraordinarily heavy, but the jam didn’t seem to follow the pattern of either an accident or roadwork impeding progress. Each of the three lanes moved every once in a while – and then stood for a long time motionless. Years ago we saw a cartoon in The New Yorker Magazine that seemed to fit the situation. A motorist was seen driving past a sign that said "Traffic Inexplicably Eases Ahead". That’s about what we felt. When we finally got past Antwerp, we felt considerably lighter. On to the Netherlands. Adelle & Ron Adelle and Ron Milavsky, Authors © Adelle and Ron Milavsky, 2005
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